


Rescue

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Kink Meme, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 21:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Martin saving Daud somehow, then casually brushing it off because he has a Dark and Mysterious Past"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue

In the end, it's Gideon who turns on him.

Funny, that. Daud's money had been on Reynolds.

"Master, don't you see? Where once you led us with insurmountable strength, you are weakened. _We_ are weakened. I have considered, and there are no other options." He does not make the mistake of approaching, or removing his hands from the hilt of his sword, but Daud is nonetheless disappointed. Has it come to this? Has he taught them nothing?

"If you believed that, you wouldn't have made the mistake of alerting me to your intentions." Idiot. Daud rises slowly, leaning on his desk in a show of weakness that is only partly feigned. He took damage completing the last assignment, a vicious gash along his ribs that he covered with a field bandage (stupid, _stupid_ mistakes, and now there's blood oozing through his shirt), and it will be weeks before he stands straight without wincing.

If he has weeks left to live, that is. It speaks well for Gideon, that he has chosen to strike while Daud is weakened. Perhaps his Whalers are not so incompetent after all. Perhaps it is time, at last. 

Or perhaps the man is simply a coward. There are a few among the Whalers who prefer poison to confrontation, and group missions over being left to their own devices. It's unfortunate, but killers of merit don't grow on trees, even in these troubled times.

"I wished to show you the respect you have earned, as our teacher, _Daud_." There's confidence seeping in, as Gideon straightens his back and stands at his tallest, encouraged by Daud's obvious disadvantage. He cuts a dramatic figure, framed in the doorway like some hero from legend. "After everything, it seemed only fair to give you a chance for last reflection, or prayer." His uniform is clean, Daud notices. Purposefully so. Even his boots are newly polished, free of river muck and krust debris.

Well, well. It _will_ be an honour.

"Are you going to attack me, or stand there ranting like an Overseer?" He keeps his tone mild, relaxed, even as he draws his sword in one smooth motion.

Gideon mirrors the gesture. The mask obscures his eyes, but Daud imagines them narrowing in irritation. This is not going as planned.  
"I will attack. I have no choice, because you have left me with none. You are weak, broken by the Empress' assassination, and if the Whalers are to survive we must cut loose the rotting flesh." The words have a mechanical, rehearsed feel to them, and Daud swallows down a weary sigh. He expected so much better.

"I always thought one of you-the strongest of you- might kill me," he muses, eyeing Gideon in a way that suggests he was never considered among the strong. If the man actually falls for such obvious antagonising, they have a serious problem.

It works. "I am strong. Far stronger than you give me credit for." The Whaler nods to himself. "Yes. I really think this is for the best. We will all be the better for it; well, except perhaps you-" Daud lunges without warning.

Pathetic. Dramatic speeches and self-justification, prattling at an intended victim as though seeking their permission to act. Surely he has trained better than this wretch. At least, he sincerely hopes so, because if someone more competent doesn't overthrow the soon-to-be new Master, his Whalers are doomed, each and every one. He doesn't want that. The Whalers have their flaws; all too loud when they should be silent, jovial when he himself is solemn, too...human, when Daud has tried so hard to shape automatons. They'd be more efficient that way. They'd stop reminding him of what he lost, or never had. But still, he wouldn't change them, not for his own comfort, and he'd rather they didn't fall to a colleague's ambition. He owes the useless fools that much, at least.

But someone else will have to lead, because Daud is going to die. He slips in the blood dripping on the wooden floorboards, fumbling with his powers like a new recruit. Like a memory of that first, hellish week after the Outsider first marked him. He neglected to drink Remedy as soon as he returned to the Whaler hideout, and now he is paying for it. Sloppy, that, and it will be the well-deserved death of him.

The fight is over almost before it has begun. If Daud could stop time things might have been different, but as it is he cannot counteract Gideon's precise Transversals, and soon enough his sword is wrenched from his fingers and tossed away.

He was disadvantaged from the beginning, but there are no excuses among killers, and now he has lost. One misplaced step, and a fist slides past his defences, clipping his wounded side. Daud falls to his knees without a sound. It's a relief. He is sick of pain. Let someone else grant _him_ the gift of oblivion, this time.

Looking up at Gideon expressionlessly, Daud reviews his options. The sword is out of reach, his pistol lies disassembled on his desk, awaiting cleaning. He cannot stretch far enough to reach any of his knives, and even if he could, the hilts would slide through his blood-slick fingers. He cannot use so much as the simplest of the Outsider's powers. There are no other options.

All in all, it's a bit embarrassing. 

Gideon stands over him, twitching with nervous energy. _Stand still_ , Daud wants to snarl at him; bad enough that the man shows signs of honour, _nobility_ , in his intentions, without shouting his unease to the world.

He says nothing, and Gideon rests his sword against the back of Daud's neck.

"Forgive me for this, Master," he announces, and Daud chokes with laughter at the earnest tone, makes sure to spit blood on his boot as a sign of disgust. Apologies to a victim. How far they have fallen.  
"You'll be dead before sunrise, you buffoon, and I hope your successor shows a little more intelligence. That shouldn't be difficult; I imagine even Jenkins would prove suitable." The scorn in his voice has the desired effect of cutting off any more small talk. Gideon stiffens, tightens his gloved fingers in anger.  
"Stubborn to the end. Goodbye, Master."

He lifts the sword, and his hand explodes.

"Whoops," Martin says from the other side of the room. His steps are swift, unworried, as he approaches; he has just enough time, and needs no more. It's futile to ask for more than required. He forces Gideon to his knees with a firm hand around the mangled, bloody flesh of his wrist. It looks painful, Daud notes vindictively; he is not normally a sadist, but in the circumstances he forgives himself a small stab of pleasure at the Whaler's shrieks. Martin ignores them with something approaching scorn, removing the other man's pistol from its holster and tossing it out of reach.

Gideon folds, crumples, huddling in on himself with all the despair of a man who has known himself to be immortal, up to the point where he is shown it is false.

These lessons are taught in blood and swift, paralysing agony; it has always been the case. The hand is damaged beyond repair, and he never did attain the ambidextrousness Daud recommends to all new Whaler recruits. There are always some who mistake his caution for paranoia, and neglect to heed his advice. This one has been an unfortunate waste of Daud's time and effort.

Still, he is a traitor, for all his pitiful state and good intentions, and the second bullet, directed with inordinate ease to the base of his skull, is a traitor's execution, in Martin's eyes at least.  
"What were you _thinking_?" His eyes are sharp, worried at last. The hands that clean themselves of blood on Gideon's Whaler uniform do not shake.

He seems to take Daud's sullen (and it is sullen, _he was ready_ for the end) silence as an invitation to scold.  
"Of all the people I might have expected to have some small, slim chance at actually beating you... what is this?" He doesn't wait for Daud's answer, nudging Gideon's corpse with a boot. "It's an embarrassment. You can do better, if you absolutely must. Since when have you settled for mediocrity?"

Usually, Daud would see the beauty in Martin's anger, in the fact that he understands the what and why of the scene before him, and needs no guilty explanation. The resignation of a too-long life ill-spent, he has felt it.

Perhaps this perception explains the flicker of shame Daud feels, curdling in his stomach under the physical pain that is so much easier to suffer. He buries it further with feigned irritation.  
"Don't prattle at me, Martin. Either finish the job, or make yourself useful, I don't care which." Despite his tone, he doesn't argue when Martin slings an arm around him, all but carrying him to the closest chair.

"If you bleed to death in your office, is it more or less humiliating than falling to an incompetent's blade?" Martin is sweetly poisonous, and Daud takes great pleasure in smearing gore all down the front of his Overseer's coat.

"I see coming to power hasn't made you any less of a bastard, _High Overseer_." He winces as Martin dumps him in the chair with undue carelessness. "See what kind of rescue you get, when that Admiral of yours decides your exhaustive knowledge of his schemes is dangerous enough to outweigh any use he may have for you." Daud hunches over, hands covering the wound in his side, as though he can _will_ all the blood back in by pressing it hard enough. Ignoring his baleful glare, Martin calmly retrieves a medical kit from its hiding place under a floorboard.

"So you admit that I just saved your life? How uncharacteristic of you, Daud." He uncorks a bottle of Elixir with his teeth before handing it to Daud. It won't be enough to fix all the damage, but it's a start.

"I've come to believe that it'll be you, in the end." He says it in a conversational tone; they might be discussing the weather, or Dunwall's growing food shortage. To his credit, Martin doesn't flinch, though he yanks the cork from a bottle of Remedy with unnecessary violence, and all but throws it at Daud.  
"That's insane," Martin snaps, avoiding his eyes. Daud just shrugs, and swallows the blue liquid neat.  
"All men need dreams."  
"I'm not going to kill you." Martins pulls thread from the medical kit, and sets to sterilising the accompanying needle with a drop of elixir. "You mean too much-" too late, he realises his mistake, and moves to hide it like the tactician he is. "That is, I find your assistance invaluable to the Loyalist cause. You're- too important." He turns away, threading the needle with unnecessary care. "Chances are I'll be dead before you. It's better that way. Easier."

_Sentiment, Martin? What have we come to?_

Still, the pain in his side is barely short of crippling, and Martin has just killed a man for him. Surely the circumstances merit a bit of leeway.  
"That remains to be seen." It does. He will see Martin alive at the end of it all, if it means killing the Admiral to make sure. He doesn't trust Havelock. The man has shark's eyes. "I...thank you." It's only polite, after all, and never mind that manners are something he never really absorbed. Learnt to mimic for the sake of missions, but they never sank more than skin deep.

"Don't bother." They are alike, he and Martin, sometimes to a worrying extent. "Now hold still, and I'll refrain from stabbing you accidentally." He lies as easily as Daud, and with about as much regret, which is to say none at all.  
"I'll return the favour sometime." Gritting his teeth, Daud scowls up at the cracked ceiling as Martin gets to work on his side. His hands are steady, and the stitches are neat enough to reflect extensive practice. 

Martin just shakes his head at the promise, and if Daud were feeling a bit less lightheaded he might drop the subject, but he doesn't.  
"I'm serious. One day there'll be a knife, or a gun aiming for your back, and I'll stop it. I can't have us...unbalanced. Unequal." Does the wording make sense at all, he wonders, because the idea as he views it in his mind is perfectly logical, but coherency is proving unusually difficult to attain. The ceiling appears to be wobbling slightly. It's highly unnerving.

Martin tells him to shut up before he embarrasses them both, with a level of amusement that verges on insulting. Technically, he has no right to give orders here, in the heart of Whaler territory, but Daud does it anyway. He has, after all, run out of things to say, and it never pays to waste words.

He lapses into unconsciousness several times during the messy process, but Martin will probably have the decency not to mock. When the Whalers appear to investigate, he doesn't so much as blink while telling them that Gideon fell to Daud's weapons; it was a very one-sided fight, he says solemnly, so they'd better not try to emulate the poor fool. Daud cannot be defeated. Attempting to kill him would be pointless.

Daud keeps his mouth shut and focuses on looking dangerous, and not falling over, though a part of him wonders at the way Martin nonchalantly dismisses his own involvement. He feels...something, some small spark of fondness that he can't quite (won't quite) banish, for all that it makes him uncomfortable. He knows the man well enough, and understands him twice as well as many others, which means he only spends about half his time utterly confused by Martin's actions. This, for one. Martin is a conundrum, with more layers than Dunwall Tower's defences, and enough secrets to fill its vaults to bursting.

There's an inordinate amount of affection for this man, tucked away under Daud's ribs and muscles, where it cannot be found save by cutting him open. It's better that way. He can't have Martin knowing that kind of thing. 

Better to blame it on the blood loss.


End file.
